I’m a big fan of gangster films like The Godfather Trilogy,  Goodfellas, Black Mass, The Departed, and many others. I’ve rarely seen a television show about gangsters. The Sopranos was an enlightening experience for me as a fan of gangster films. The man behind this show was David Chase. A journeyman writer/director. He was struggling to get his project made until that incredible show. Wise Man: David Chase and The Sopranos is a two-part documentary depicting his story and that of The Sopranos getting made.

David Chase is from New Jersey and he got his knowledge of this world of gangsters and wise guys growing up there as a kid. He wasn’t like a lot of kids his age and he was more of an academic growing up. He tried getting into multiple schools before finally getting accepted to Wake Forest and later NYU. These arts programs helped him with his love of film. Eventually, he moved to sunny California where his career would get off and running. 

With documentaries, there are a few things that most directors do. The first being talking heads. The main talking head is with Chase himself. Alex Gibney, who directed Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room and Taxi to the Dark Side,  is a good director who is asking a lot of poking and prodding questions of the man. Sometimes he’s a bit uncomfortable with them, but that’s his job as a director. To get to the bottom of the man or the topic he’s trying to explore.

Chase wasn’t the only talking head though. Robin Green a writer/director, Chris Albrecht former chairman and CEO of HBO, Carolyn Strauss President of HBO, Micheal Imperioli actor, Lorraine Bracco actress, Steven Van Zant actor/musician, Drea de Matteo actress, Edie Falco actress, Alihk Sakahlov director of photography, Terrence Winter writer/producer, and Frank Renzulli writer/producer, we’re a dozen or so of the men and women who talked about their experiences with Chase and working on the highly successful drama series, The Sopranos. They weren’t exactly flattering comments from everybody either.

The second thing that documentaries are famous for doing is they use archival footage of the subject they are documenting.  There are a lot of videos and photos of Chase’s childhood growing up in New Jersey.  Also, there were quite a few behind-the-scenes photos and so forth from his time directing episodes of The Sopranos. Photos with cast members and other footage of his time working on the show. These are just a hint of all the behind-the-scenes footage that could have been used.

You can’t do a documentary about Chase and The Sopranos without talking about James Gandolfini. He is a major plot point in this film. He was a man who came from obscurity to get this role, but after many years of stress, paparazzi drunken nights, the rigamarole of the daily routine of fourteen-hour days finally got to him. He wasn’t the character he portrayed on screen and that affected him off screen. Trying to get into character wasn’t easy. Years later he died of a heart attack. Rumors abound that one had a lot to do with the other.

Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos is a documentary film that delves into this man and his phenomenal show. His career up to this point led him to this incredible gangster series. Having HBO behind him in a time of its television infancy.  Where they were starting to change the game was pure coincidence.  This film delved into the life of James Gandolfini and everything else involving Chase’s life and his creation of the critically acclaimed HBO Series. If you’re a fan of that then you’ll be a fan of this two-part docu-series 

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen